User blog:Jakeisfake/Vote for Jake! xoxo
Section 1: Overview Hi y’all! It’s insane to think I’m here. If you told me on Day 1 that I’d make FTC, I’d tell you no ma’am no. Before I get into my speech, I’d like to thank the hosts for the sheer amount of effort they’ve put into this season… I’d also like to thank the players for one of the most thoroughly enjoyable games I’ve had the honor of participating in. Lines were drawn. Blows were exchanged. Plans were sabotaged. And I loved every minute of it. Thank you for making this experience what it was… absolutely exceptional from start to finish. Throughout this speech, I want to go into the highlights and lowlights of my game, and why I believe I am deserving of being the first sole survivor of Louvre ORG. I hope you all find that I deserve this title due to a cutthroat yet dominant strategic game that was abetted by prowess in the social and physical pillars of this game. Section 2: Summary My understanding of my game is not unlike the motion of swinging, I often found myself swinging between risk and reward, as well as deception and honesty. On a more literal level, it also meant swinging between voting blocs and alliances; literally placing myself in the middle of alliances and allowing them to systematically eliminate each other, all while preserving myself and my position to the best of my ability. The efficiency of this is reflected in the following highlights of my game: ~ I never received a single vote across my thirty nine days here. ~ I knew where every vote was going every tribal and placed my vote accordingly to best strategically advance myself. ~ I created and executed a long-term strategy and boot order to near perfection; the only flaw was an idol play. ~ I have the most votes in majority, the most competition wins, and orchestrated or was the key factor in nearly every merge tribal. There are also lowlights and mistakes that I intend to discuss at the end, the most significant being jury management; I hope that when compared with the overall strength of my strategic, social, and physical game and significantly more critical mistakes or weaker games of my fellow finalists, they won’t be enough to deter a prospective vote. With that, I'll go through the phases of the game, my many moves, and how I think they demonstrate I outwitted, outplayed, and outlasted! Section 3: Pre-Merge Tribes Original Tribes On my original tribe, my strategy was basic, but efficient: socialize with virtually everyone, build the strongest connections possible, and become an essential part in challenges so my elimination would, in any circumstance, be detrimental for the games of others. This proved to be successful, as I found myself in a majority alliance with Chris, Tyler, Annabelle, and Aaron, and with developed bonds to Hannah and Dani. With two inactive tribe members in Sean and Megan, surviving Tosa 1.0 was a cakewalk, but the bonds I built would come into play later in the game. Swapped Tribes Swapfuck me gently with a chainsaw. Knowing I had been placed in a tribal line based minority, my goal was to secure my safety through challenges. This sentiment succeeded as I had the highest score in the double tribal challenge, which literally sent Aki 2.0 over Tosa 2.0 and secured my safety. This was definitely my weakest point in the game because fate attempted to take my game out of my hands, but I worked challenges until I took it right back. The final swapped tribe put me at a natural advantage, but that did not stop me from consulting with my tribemates and trying to give them advice in chess, knowing I’d be opening routes for future allies by keeping Tosa 3.0 strong, which was accomplished in the merge when Eva and Elizabeth flipped. Overall, my pre-merge game was one of tactful decisions wherein I laid foundations for a strong merge game while playing safe simply because I didn’t have to be risky. I built up connections to Chris, Tyler, Elizabeth, Sim, Jake R, Nicholas, Hannah, Aaron, Anna, Dani, and Torsa (in the chess chat) that I would utilize come merge. Section 4: Merged Tribe Merge was… an experience. I got off my Kami Island vacation, was added to the merged chat, and two sides went to WAR; there was a bitter misunderstanding over the nature of Anna’s elimination, one that led to instant conflict between the 3.0 tribes. It became transparent that Tosa and Takaoka were sticking together, and having developing bonds with both groups in the pre-merge, I became the swing. This laid the foundation for a strong strategic game: in the early merge, I wanted to maintain the swing; in the late merge, I wanted to capitalize on the power my vote held to systematically eliminate threats from both sides until I had my optimal FTC combination. F11: The second the fight started, lines were drawn in the sand, but just because others drew them didn’t mean I intended to follow them. I began telling two sides two stories to cement the impression that I’d work with either; I played up my disgust at Tosa’s antics with the Takaokas and my frustration with the tribal-line mentality of the Takaokas with the Tosas. This sprung into three alliances: A ~ Chris, Hannah, Myself, Tyler B ~ Torsa, Sim, Myself, Andrea C ~ Jake R, Tyler, Myself Instantly, it became clear that it was a 5v5 vote and I would be the deciding vote. To preserve my position, I concocted a plan where I’d leak the Takaoka vote to Chris, try to guide him into playing his idol on that person, and vote with the Takaokas, leaving both sides believing I was with them. I voted Hannah, but I was the reason she had an idol on her, and Torsa went home as a result, leaving the blood between the two sides more fiery than ever and both needing me more than before. F10: The alliances expanded. I was now grouped into the exclusive position of being aligned with every player in the merge: A ~ Chris, Hannah, Myself, Tyler, Elizabeth, Eva B ~ Nicholas, Andrea, Sim, Torsa, Myself, Jake R Because of my gameplay the previous round, I was informed not only of both sides’ votes, but of their advantages as well; believing Jake R to be a strategic threat to my swing position in the long run due to his more developed relationships with the Tosas, it became clear that voting him over Tyler, who had a similar relationship network to me and was more easily influenced, was the ideal move for me. As a result, I drew a line in the sand and informed the Tosas of the vote steal and the vote, directly causing Tyler’s idol flush and Jake R’s elimination. While I was concerned I was burning a bridge, the flow of information from Takaoka was maintained. F9: With the Takaoka trio against the Tosa majority, both sides were planning on taking big shots and the result proves I had the utmost amount of knowledge in this game and used it to navigate accordingly. The respective votes settled on Chris and Nicholas, two huge threats playing amazingly; having been informed that the Heiwa and Aki idols were with Chris and Nicholas, and being the only person in the game to know where both remaining idols were, I allowed both sides to pursue their targets, encouraged Chris to play his idol (Nicholas was playing his regardless per Andrea) and tactfully placed a vote on Elizabeth so in the case both idols were played, it would be a 0-0-1 vote, lowering the numbers for Tosa and placing more importance on my swing vote. I chose Elizabeth over Eva because I had a closer bond to her, meaning if the situation ended in a 3-1-0, I could downplay it as a joke, which I successfully did. Unfortunately, Chris removed his idol play after playing it and left the game quicker than I would have preferred, as he and Nicholas were exceptional shields — the outcome was still what I wanted with a Tosa leaving, because as the sides became tighter once again, more importance was placed on my vote. F8: This vote was arguably the one strategic mistake in my game and it marked a transition from maintaining the swing to capitalizing on it. I know it wasn’t my best showing, but I genuinely tried to improve from it. My Touchy Subjects results were what inspired this: I was denoted as the least trustworthy, but playing the best social game. In essence, people were aware of what I was doing, but due to the numbers situation, they had to play into it; because of this, I knew I had to weaken the majority of 5 with the Tosas and even the playing field to preserve my position; hence, I was going to vote with the Takaokas against Eva and flip Tyler on the revote — unfortunately, I made a mistake by accepting immunity from Sim and isolated myself strategically from the Tosas, preventing any ability to sabotage Eva’s idol play and leaving me with my first non-ideal outcome in Nicholas’ elimination. I was less deterred by the elimination, as Nicholas was a huge threat and objectively, would’ve been my next target, and more deterred by burning a bridge with the Tosas and placing myself in a minority with Andrea and Sim. Basically, Eva’s idol play sabotaged my long-term strategy and put me on the defensive on one dimension and the offensive on another, but the response does show an ability to navigate obstacles. F7: Knowing my name would be up for discussion for the first time, I explored what remained of my bonds to the Tosas. With Elizabeth and Hannah, I depicted myself as a perfect finalist for either of their more passive games due to a critical flaw in my jury management; this led Elizabeth to give me an idol clue and form a F3 deal and Hannah to take my name off of the table for the Tosa vote. While this was a back up route, I wanted to return to the swing and campaigned to Tyler, leaking suspicions of a Hannah/Eva/Liz alliance that would put him at final juror if he didn’t flip. As a result of my campaigning, Tyler flipped and Elizabeth left the game, successfully weakening the Tosas — the landscape of the final six was now three duos: myself/Tyler, Eva/Hannah, and Andrea/Sim. By capitalizing on my social bonds, I managed to navigate from the minority to a power position and lay the foundation for a long-term boot order that was executed exactly as intended. F6: My strategy was to eliminate Eva, then flip to Tyler/Hannah to eliminate Sim and Andrea; I gunned for a CRUCIAL immunity, less because I needed it and more because I wanted to open my options for targets. In an unexpected turn of events, Hannah exiled herself from the game, abandoning her closest ally and leaving me in the middle of Tyler/Eva and Sim/Andrea. I immediately campaigned with Sim and Andrea to get the votes on Eva instead of Tyler, believing her to be the biggest threat remaining, having the respect of the jury and some form of influence with all the players. This, of course played out into a 3-2 vote with Eva leaving; not only was a huge threat eliminated, but I left myself in a F5 situation where it was 2v2; this is a testament to the strength of my long-term strategy, as I managed to keep two members of each alliance at the F11 in the game and against each other. F5/F4: My aim from this point on was straight-forward: eliminate the objectively two biggest jury threats for their developed bonds to the players and stellar underdog strategy. I created a final alliance with myself, Tyler, and Hannah and pitched Andrea as the fake target to counter a potential idol play from Sim, who was the last person who could possibly have an advantage from Kami Island. After Sim’s elimination, I utilized my physical game one last time to win FIC and send a beloved friend out of the game. Section 5: Summary Overall, I think I had a solid strategy that enabled me to think several tribals ahead, first positioning myself for safety and then capitalizing on that position to eliminate threats and get my ideal FTC combination. As a result, I knew where every vote was going, only voting minority for strategic reasons, and never received a single vote against me. This strategy was the direct result of developing relationships in the pre-merge and understanding how to navigate two sides in a long-term manner. My physical game abetted this strategic game - each of my immunities were less to secure my own safety and more to block a target from safety; this did result in three individual immunities. Accordingly, I think I always played a role in the tribal council outcome - whether it was the F11, F10, F9, F7, F6, F5, or F4 vote, it was my direct influence that resulted in my target leaving the game. I also navigated obstacles well - when placed in a minority on Aki, I relied on my physical and social game to keep myself safe and when outplayed by Eva’s idol at the F8, I was able to get back on course by flipping Tyler and returning to the swing. My game had flaws, jury management being the most critical one, but I went out of my way to never tell a lie unless it was absolutely necessary to secure my outcome. If there are any confusions as to why I would think something was necessary, I implore that you ask me in your speech, because it was never my intention to harm the relationships I built up, but I can understand if that causes you to be hesitant with your vote. An example would be how at Jake R’s elimination, my lie countered a prospective idol play from Nicholas. While I know this might deter you from voting me, I think my fellow finalists have both weaker games and more critical flaws. I don’t want to read them excessively, but they simply won less challenges, were blindsided on multiple occasions and often survived on the merit of my gameplay rather than their own. They demonstrated an overall lack of control of both their own fates and the fates of others. I can elaborate if one of you wants me to. I’ve played six survivor orgs and this is my third ftc; I can honestly say this was in my top two games and a perfect note on which to take a hiatus to focus on university. This cast came to fight, play hard, and I loved every second of it. I think it led to this game being fun above everything else; in understanding my weaknesses and highlighting my other strengths, I hope y’all can see the pure amount of effort and awareness I have poured into this season and how it led to a calculated social, strategic, and physical game. Thank you so much to anyone who read this flop of a speech and I look forward to hearing from each and every one of you! I also added some graphics that accentuate the key points of my speech and the game overall! (no i cant center images for my life wikia makes me sad im sorry) post season edit: i removed the visuals because they apparently looked like i thought i was clever and thats not my vibe so they're departing NNN Category:Blog posts